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Tuesday, 11 October 2016

More emails released by Wikileaks

Whistleblowing
website WikiLeaks has released a second batch of emails from Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman John Podesta. The new
release features 2,086 hacked emails out of a trove that Julian
Assange says includes 50,000 messages.

Former
President Bill Clinton features prominently in the latest leaks, as
highlighted by Wikileaks’ Twitter feed. In one, People close to the
power couple pushed for Mr. Clinton, referred to as “WJC” for
William Jefferson Clinton, to be less involved with his wife’s
presidential campaign due to his extramarital affairs.

“I
had a multi-email exchange with someone in the media this morning---a
name you would know---who is telling me that there are people close
to the Clintons who says WJC's sex life could be damaging to her,” a
January 2016
email from
blogger Brent Budowsky to Podesta reads.

Another
email, dated December 2011, from Doug Band, a lawyer who helped
create the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), said that Clinton
Foundation Chief Operating Officer Laura Graham was “suicidal” due
to “the
stress of all of this office crap with wjc” and
the Clinton Valley Center. Band also called out the couple’s
daughter Chelsea for not caring about “her
role” in
the office problems.

“Bruce
[Lindsey] said the stress of specifically the office had caused his
very serious health issues as you both know,” he
wrote. “But
I'm sure chelsea is more concerned with a mostly false story in the
distinguished ny post about mf global and teneo not her role in what
happened to laura/bruce, what she is doing to the organization or the
several of stories that have appeared in the ny post about her father
and a multitude of women over the years.”

That
email wasn’t the first time Band expressed dislike of Chelsea
Clinton. In an email to Podesta a
month previous,
he said she was “acting
like a spoiled brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues
to justify what she's doing because she, as she has said, hasn't
found her way and has a lack of focus in her life.”

An
email between
Graham and a senior aide to Mrs. Clinton, Huma Abedin, from November
2011 discusses the Clintons’ relationship with Goldman Sachs, and
how it will help the foundation with additional office space.

“They
have an interested party (who today just asked for a draft lease - so
that is moving quickly) on the table for part of the space so if we
want additional space, we need to move quickly,” Graham
wrote. “Goldman,
b/c of their relationship with us, is delaying the drafting of a
lease for this interested party until they get a better sense from us
but they cannot hold them off too much longer.”

Last
March, when discussing putting out a statement or a tweet regarding
a standoff
over an anti-human trafficking billthat
was holding up the confirmation of nominee Loretta Lynch to be
attorney general, Abedin described the relationship between Mrs.
Clinton, whom she refers to as “HRC” for
Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Lynch as “cordial.”

“She
knows Loretta. Not an extremely close relationship and don't remember
last time they connected,” Abedin wrote.“She
was in running to be [Eliot] Spitzer LG [lieutenant governor] years
ago. Hrc wanted Leecia Eve, others pushed Lynch. Regardless,
definitely a cordial relationship.”

With
the nearly 2,100 emails released Monday morning, Wikileaks has now
published more than 4,000 Podesta emails. During the second
presidential debate on Sunday, Mrs. Clinton confirmed the
authenticity of the messages released on Friday by clarifying
comments exposed by the leak. Monday’s release covers emails
between September 2007 and March 2016.

New
leak reveals extent of Clinton ties with US media

Hillary
Clinton has been revealed to have a very cozy relationship with the
US media, which has been found to work closely with Clinton’s
campaign to present her in a favorable, transparent light – even
planting stories, new email leaks suggest.

These
facts are laid bare in the latest cache of classified Clinton
campaign emails seen by The
Intercept,
which in turn received them from Guccifer 2.0 – the hacker who’s
reportedly behind several high-profile intrusions.

The
cache of emails includes campaign strategies aimed at keeping the
public perception of Clinton favorable, focusing particularly on her
transparency, especially in light of the FBI investigation into her
use of a private email server. The strategies sometimes reveal the
campaign presiding over stylistic points and emphasizing what is to
be described as “on
the record.”

Of
particular note is one January 2015 document which includes
references to Maggie Haberman. Formerly of Politico, Haberman now
covers the presidential election for the New York Times. According to
the leaked document, she’s a “friendly
journalist” who
has “never
disappointed” in
painting a positive picture of Clinton.

Haberman
was seemingly put to good use, emerging with two stories which were
meant to shed light, among other things, on how Hillary Clinton’s
thought process works and how successful her cabinet members were.
The New York Times piece entitled ‘Hillary Clinton Begins Process
of Vetting — Herself’, talks about how open Clinton is to
researching herself and how committed to transparency that makes her.
Especially given how her opponents mainly focus on her foundation
work, or the millions she’s received in paid speech appearances, as
well as her relationship to Wall Street.

Neither
Merrill nor Haberman responded to the Intercept’s requests for
comment, nor did they deny that the document exists.

One
of the documents, entitled ‘The Press and Surrogate Plan’, talked
of willing personnel in the media who could always be put to good
use, at CNN or elsewhere. Clinton staffers were also careful in
distinguishing between “progressive helpers” and those who were
potentially friendly, but could be further coerced.

These
so-called media surrogates would often include TV pundits whose roles
would appear to be neutral, but who were enrolled by the campaign.
The metadata for the ‘surrogate’ document traces it back to its
author Jennifer Palmieri – the Clinton campaign communications
director.

Furthermore,
as described in an April 2015 memo, there would be secret
get-togethers involving media big shots and celebrity TV
personalities – a notable one would take place in the aftermath of
Clinton’s running announcement at the home of one of her
strategists on the Upper East Side. The informal cocktail party was
completely off-the-record, and intended to coordinate how Clinton’s
campaign would be presented to the American public.

The
strategies were not specifically formulated for the Clinton campaign,
however. According to a March 2015 memo by campaign manager Robby
Mook, the tried and tested tactic of constantly feeding the press
positive stories in order to take away its ability to react to
constant outside accusations was particularly important.

These
controversial strategies have also been employed by the Republicans,
although this latest cache of documents is the first glimpse into
just how coordinated the effort is to use the media to political
advantage.

The
revelations from the Intercept come just as the second round of
debating between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has wrapped up,
looking colder than ever, with not so much as a handshake exchange.

The
leak also comes amid the latest official attack on Russia by the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence. On Friday they released a statement
claiming they are ““confident
that the Russian government directed” the
hacks of emails and documents and their posting on WikiLeaks,
DCLeaks, and the blog of the hacker calling himself 'Guccifer 2.0.'

Russia
has been denying all complicity. The United States has still not
presented any evidence of an official link to the Russian government.